


stitching myself up (living is the hardest part)

by solitariusvirtus, tenten_d



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Haunting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 20:33:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3950785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solitariusvirtus/pseuds/solitariusvirtus, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenten_d/pseuds/tenten_d
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cersei and keeping the ghost of a she-wolf alive...</p>
            </blockquote>





	stitching myself up (living is the hardest part)

The first time she sees the wolf-girl, Cersei is lying beneath her drunken husband, her channel clenching with pain, disgust roiling inside of her, swarming through her veins like a plague. She opens her mouth and screams at the sight of that ghostly image, trembling before her eyes. Her grey gaze burns and burns and Cersei cries out, the girl’s name ringing in her ears as Robert fells over her, crushing her beneath his weight.

Lyanna, her ghost, the apparition cocks her head to the side and continues to watch. She holds a finger to her rosy lips, nay, bloodied lips. Her breath catches in her throat and all that Cersei manages is a pitiful little squeak.

Then wolf-girl turns and walks away, leaving her aching and panting. Cersei pushes her husband away from her and scrambles for the empty chamber pot, barely able to keep from losing the content of her stomach on the ground tiles.

This is Robert’s fault, she thinks. The idiot had been whispering his whore’s name and her ghost came seeking, Cersei only wishes he might have seen her and joined her in death. Once her stomach is completely empty she raises herself to her full height and throws a disgusted look to her marriage bed. She can feel Robert’s seed trickling down her thigh, the putrid stench almost enough to send her for the chamber pot again.

She scrubs away at the skin with the first cloth she can get her hands on. She hates him, She truly hates him.

*

She hopes that not speaking her name will keep the she-wolf away from her door. But Lyanna Stark, with customary devilish stubbornness, refuses to be gone. Cersei will sometimes wake up on the middle of the night and see her silhouette in the moonlight. Grey slowly bleeds into red and sometimes those eyes fix her with a look that has the blood chilling in her veins.

She is haunted. Her skin prickles. The hair on the back of her neck stands up.

Her ghost will sometimes step out into the sunlight. Cersei will catch a glimpse of her every now and again. She’ll clench her teeth and press her lips tight together until not a drop of blood is flowing through them. Robert, of course, sees nothing. He will rob her even of this joy, of being scared out of his wits, elated to death, having the moment stop, arrested forever.

There are times when she wants so badly to yell out at the apparition to _just leave her alone, that hasn’t she done enough already?_ Instead, Cersei hides away in Jaime’s arms, losing herself in her twin, for the moment successfully driving away the ghost.

Jaime doesn’t understand. He thinks she fears Robert discovering them when she hurriedly demands that he enter her, voice hoarse and impatient. She could care less about her husband. She just wants the Stark girl to stop looking at her as if she can see to the depths of her soul. _Stop. Just stop. Enough._

*

Mad, like an injured beast, she paces the length of her bedchamber, looking over her shoulder at the same dark corner of the room where Lyanna flickered in and out of sight, like the flame of a candle in the wind.

“What do you want?” she hisses at the dead girl. “What? Leave me. Leave me, fiend. You wretched whore? What else do you want to take from me?” She offers no reply. Of course she doesn’t. She never speaks. Cersei lets out a yell of frustration and her jewels encrusted comb sails towards the mist that form the trembling image.

“You won, damn you to hell. Is that what you want to hear?” She’s just about ready to grab this creature and kill her a second time. “You took him. You took my silver Prince. Never did I dream that he would look at the likes of you.”

Cersei almost wishes it were Elia Martell’s ghost with her crushed skull that did the haunting. That one she might have taunted back in obscurity. A soft, sickly, weak spectre which she would have sent running. But it is not Elia Martell and she is forced in the company of the Northerner girl.

The door opens and just like that Lyanna vanishes.

“Sister, what are you staring at?” she hears Jaime’s voice behind her. “Is there a spider on the wall?”

*

After Joffrey is born, she is free of her ghost for six full moon turns, to the point where Cersei can breathe free. Finally. She cradles her son and kisses his blonde curls, smiling secretively whenever Robert steals a glance at the boy. He would never suspect Joff is not the fruit of his loins.

It is the most difficult task to keep her amusement at bay when he picks the child up and her son starts howling in protest. The boy knows in his simplicity that the man holding him is a monster of the worst kind, one that pretends kindness.

She finds comfort in her son. Joff is entirely hers. He is the product of her love, her greatest work yet. And he looks like Jaime. He looks like her, in other words. She rocks the child and sings to him and keeps him well away from Robert unless their presence is requested, which it normally isn’t. Cersei is filled with joy for the first time in some time. Nothing can possibly ruin her disposition.

She floats upon her cloud up until the point when, in the nursery, she sees the she-wolf banding over her child’s cradle. Cersei runs towards her. Lyanna Stark looks up and smiles. It is one of those smiles that raises a thousand questions. Cersei wants to shoo her away, to take her son and run away, but a strange sort of calmness shoots through her.

The ghost’s lips move for the first time.

*

It takes them hours to find the boy. Cersei has gone half-mad with worry, yelling and snapping at whoever falls into her path. Robert had gone whoring, so she can curse her name in peace. Of course, she does not voice it. It is enough to damn him in her mind.

Jaime tries to catch her in his arms, but she won’t have it. “Why aren’t you searching for him? Find my son,” she tells him, pushing his hands away. Her twin looks at her as if she is exaggerating. “He’s just a babe.”

Her poor Tommen; he has somehow managed to escape the vigilance of his watchers and has snuck off to only the Seven know where. Cersei just wants him back. Joffrey and Myrcella are sitting on the bed, looking one and the other and whispering nonsensical words from time to time. They do not like being forced inside. But she cannot let them out of sight for one moment even.

“Mother, I’m bored,” Joff finally gathers the courage to say. “Can we not play in the yard?”

“No,” Cersei denies the request sharply. The boy’s face goes red and tears fill his eyes. Her heart breaks. Cersei runs and takes him in her arms, kissing his cheeks.

And then someone finally comes with Tommen. Cersei is torn between crying in relief and chastising her little cub. “Where was he?”

“Near the pit,” comes the hesitant reply.

“The nice lady told me not to get too close. Mother, why did my hand pass through her?”

*

The last time she sees Lyanna Stark, they are both sitting at Robert’s bedside. Cersei is drunk on her own victory and the ghost-girl searches the dying man before them with cold, calculating eyes, as if she’d trying to guess how much longer he’ll plague them with his presence.

Cersei is by now comfortable enough not to be frightened in her presence. It’s a strange thing. “I should have done it sooner, as soon as Joff was born.” She down a mouthful of wine, enjoying the rich taste on her tongue.

Wine red eyes flicker to grey and then to that ruby colour again. Her lips move, but no sound comes out. Cersei, however, has grown quite adept at reading lips. She accepts the congratulations with a small smirk. Her eyes turn to Robert. He groans in pain. Her smile widens into a vicious stretch of lips. “I grant you, had I had more time, I might have found something more inventive, but I suppose a board will do. And what a delicious meal it shall be.” She is almost tempted to have the beast stuffed instead, to keep it forever, like a saviour, an idol.

“Gods, I hope he dies soon. I’m all out of wine.” The apparition moves closer, pale face translucent this close. “Look at him. I don’t even know if I should pity you. Had you lived it would have been that,” she gestured towards her injured husband, “they would have tied you to.”

 _I would have pretended madness,_ the ghost mouths.


End file.
